A History Lesson…

In the late 70’s the US military started training their soldiers using a brand new system of technology. Infrared lasers shot from replica guns in makeshift arenas.

In 1984 with a mixture of this technology and inspiration from the very first Star Wars film a new industry was born by George Carter III, a Texan who has been immortalized at the site of the very first laser tag facility in his home state. It wasn’t long until laser tag facilities started opening all across the US and the rest of the world. Laser tag was a huge hit. Star Wars and Star Trek brought a fresh and culturally relevant flavor to the game. Kids felt themselves carried off to Tatooine and the USS Enterprise where they could fight off alien armies with no personal risk. But things changed. Game systems brought imaginative children back home to their living room sofas where they had screens to show them the imaginary worlds they were experiencing with the medium of a joystick. Laser tag continued on but it was not the same craze it was when it started out. Going to laser tag facilities just doesn’t carry the same magic that it used to.

But a new wind is blowing in the industry. Skirmos is a company that is melding the game of lasertag with new 3D printing technology that would allow for the creation of a massive variety of laser tag guns and gear at a much cheaper cost. A company called Zero Latency is building laser tag software that would work in conjunction with the virtual reality system of Oculus Rift to bring you any arena imaginable. And a company called Laser Tag Source is currently bringing laser tag guns, gear and even bunkers to the common consumer and, in the future, may be bringing the entire laser tag facility experience any way you want it.

Laser tag today is not the laser tag of the 70’s or the 80’s or even the 90’s. 21^st century laser tag is here, and it is the whole experience that puts the gun in your hands rather than a joystick under your thumb.